We’ve been talking a lot at IBM about how we’re seeing the coming of age of a whole new generation of intelligent systems and technologies—more powerful and accessible than ever before.Our planet is becoming more intelligent, interconnected, instrumented, and smarter day by day.

Increasingly, physical assets are being transformed into smart, digitally-aware assets that can receive and emit data and connect with one another, allowing people, systems and objects to communicate and interact in entirely new ways. The ability to interconnect smarter products and information technology is making it possible for industries to deliver new, innovative services to customers—smarter services which fundamentally change the economics of delivery services.

For example, smarter energy services leverage new smart meter technology to better manage energy distribution across the grid. Smarter energy service has resulted in a 14% reduction in CO2 power plant emissions and reduced homeowner costs up to 10%. Smarter traffic service leverages smart tolls and communication systems to better manage traffic flow, resulting in 20% less traffic, a 12% drop in emissions.

Underpinning these smart business services is a Service Delivery Chain that must be aligned and integrated across processes, roles, and assets.

Integrated Service Management provides a holistic approach to designing, managing and delivering smart services. It connects processes, roles and assets together making everything occur in a seamless flow- A customer places an order, the system checks inventory, delivery gets scheduled, inventory is replenished; to quickly pulling together and making sense out of any kind of information and data;. to finding and fixing complex problems with little or no human help; to making collaboration a fundamental part of how work is done; to creating an infrastructure that helps reduce costs, improve service and manage risks.